Kashi
"A warrior of love confronts you! Prepare to be erased in the name of MUSIC!" - Day 1 "... if you don't think you can be strong and care, I would like to remind you of the number of times I've set you on fire, and also that I am your friend." - Day 6 Aika Kashiyama is a player from Week 12 of The Reaper's Game. She wants to be an idol and considers music to be one of the two most important things in her life. Upon entering the game, she almost immediately declared herself a magical girl and began doing her best to set Shibuya ablaze. Why she was allowed access to fire pins, nobody knows. Appearance She's 5'3" and slender, not having much muscle tone thanks to hardly ever exercising, but with fairly tan skin thanks to liking to be outside. Long honey brown twintails that she keeps tied up with mint green ribbons fall down to the small of her back and her bangs frame an oval face with brown eyes and a constant smile. She tends to wear pink and green, a short skirt and tanktop with striped socks and neat black shoes. She keeps a messenger bag on her with a variety of items (such as a cordless mic) inside and a handful of charms in her skirt pocket. Personality She's energetic and bubbly, hiding her worry behind a smile. Most of her worry comes from how she strives for perfection in all things, often working herself sick just because some little detail is off in her work and it won't stop being off so she redoes it until she's finally satisfied. Intensely curious about anything that seems like it's being hidden from her, which results in her poking her nose into others' business and not always thinking about how it might hurt them. She does care, though, and if she detects a problem someone's having she'll do her best to fix it. Even if she refuses to accept that her solutions might not always be the best, being stubborn to a fault. Her memory needs work. Like, a lot of work. She's also terrible at seeing things even if they're right in front of her face, being a very unperceptive girl. Despite this, once she actually manages to retain information, she's remarkably good at putting all the pieces together. Once her entry fee was taken and she met Luna, that natural energy increased to a sort of mania as the two exacerbated each other's mood. She's constantly smiling and acting progressively more ridiculous in her image of a magical girl, delighting in fire and destruction since it makes Luna so happy. She clings to any source of music she can find, which so far include Luna and Jing. Thinking about how scared she is would only get her to stop being able to play (especially since her ability to create music for herself is gone and that's a large part of what kept her going in the RG), so she simply... doesn't, instead bouncing all around and concentrating only on keeping up that facade. This doesn't mean she hasn't thought about it. Only that she's decided it's better if she generally doesn't. History Pre-Game THIS IS WHERE YOU DESCRIBE THEIR PAST. Week 12 Day 0 She attended the tutorial led by Usa and managed to forget nearly half the details and people there by the time it was done. Nothing of note really happened this day. Shortly before midnight, she was happily singing karaoke with Luna. The last song she sang was We Didn't Start The Fire. Day 1 She was awake when Jess took her entry fee. Since she'd been singing immediately before, it took her only a couple minutes to figure out what she'd lost, since when she went to resume her party with Luna, she just choked instead. No sound would come out of her mouth. She and Luna continued talking, with Kashi latching onto Luna as a provider of music. They pacted very quickly, being the second pair to do so. While she and Luna were exploring the shops early on, she stumbled into Ochre, meeting the excitable Jing and bonding with her instantly. Later on, she met Yasumu and Lee as well, and wound up staying on one of the spare futons at the shop instead of on the ground. This proved to be much more comfortable. The mission was to get to 104, something simple, which the players achieved without much fuss. She attracted Nagito's attention by doing an incredibly overdramatic love confession for his wall's challenge. Later on, Kashi and Mai spoke to the GM Jessamyn about reaperhood, Kashi noting the other girl's unusual level of interest in it. Day 2 At the very end of Day 2, she watched as Faror suddenly kicked Mai and Aella into the noise plane. When Kafu mentioned something about Faror just playing around, Kei said she wasn't. It sank in for Kashi in that moment. That the reapers were on a different side than them, had to kill them. Despite her earlier conversation with Jess about harriers, it hadn't really... clicked. She learned that reapers had Noise forms and would eventually be fighting them. (Though she was relieved to learn Nagito couldn't attack her directly.) When Kei kept talking, pointing out that not all of them could survive and that no matter the friendships formed, in the end it was all of them out for themselves... she broke down crying, initially clinging to Kafu until Jess came over and hugged her, at which point she transferred herself to the GM. When Mai got back, she managed to stir up even more trouble by asking what was so bad about being a reaper. Kashi listened to all of this from what she felt was a safe position in Jess' arms. This did, in fact, prove to be the position with the least number of angry people in it. She talked with Jess about mostly friendship, happiness, and partners, calming down slightly. Then Calanthe-- who Kei had said was a very capable harrier-- grabbed Kafu, Sen, and Shion, and dragged them into a fight. Faror broke down. After a moment, Usa did as well, both of them obviously distraught over what they thought of a Kafu's possible erasure. This made it very obvious that the reapers did, in fact, care about them. Even if they were all supposed to fight each other like Kei was saying. People cared. Kashi looked at those around her-- and realised nobody would care if she died. She hadn't been down here long enough to make those sort of friends. For a moment, she thought that it'd be for the best if she died, since her family was already grieving and she didn't have any confirmation that her mother was still alive, and... that she could take the place of an erasure so that a reaper wouldn't have to hurt someone they cared about. Remembering that Luna would die with her... kept her resolute. She gave Jess a small smiley face charm to make sure the GM would never forget her, and upon learning that Jess never would, decided not to ever be sad again. Someone cared about her. Someone who would survive would remember her. No matter what happened. So there really were no bad outcomes, in the end! With her newfound knowledge of Luna being her driving force to stay alive, she confronted Kei about what he'd said earlier, stating that the players weren't all on their own fighting each other because they had partners. He petted her head and told her she'd figured out another piece of the puzzle. She is never forgetting this. When Kafu got back, she tried to impart the idea to him that the reapers cared without making it obvious and embarrassing them. He seemed to get it, so she made him promise to survive, and he made her promise the same. She wasn't sure she could keep such a promise. She made it nonetheless. The day ended with her dragging Mai off to get the story of her death and why she wanted to become a reaper out of her. She then decided to be Mai's friend and gave her a peace symbol charm. The two headed back to the gathering of others... right in time for Kashi to cosplay Eli in a Love Live impromptu performance thanks to a game of Truth or Dare. Sen, V, Rori, Usa, Sef, and Nagito cosplayed as well. It was beautiful. It was also recorded, Usa saying they planned to show it to Kei. After Sef departed, V brought up the idea of rehearsals. Rori and Kashi jumped upon this as Sen and V had a schadenfreude-off. Then Usa took Rori, Kashi, Mai, and Sen for a fun little money-earning battle. At long last, Kashi got to see a fox Noise in action, an adorable Psychodelifox named Peaches! She learned a valuable and important lesson: friendship and hatred are both best expressed through explosions. Day 3 Day 4 After almost everyone had retired for the night, Takumi came in and set up a makeshift little stage for an impromptu concert. Kashi was immediately taken with this and gravitated over to hear the idol's music. Kafu joined her a few minutes later. It turned into the two players dancing (and Kafu singing) while Takumi played guitar by the last number, and after the music was over Takumi held out their guitar to let Kashi borrow it. Day 5 At Ama's wall, where player volunteers were told to think of a reaper and come up with a Disney song that fit them, Kashi immediately thought of Takumi (ascribing them the song Go The Distance) whereas before the previous night the first reaper her thoughts would have strayed to would obviously have been Jess. Slowly she was improving. While they were clearing the walls, they received the news that Arisu had been erased. Kenta was offered the chance to be a reaper. All Kashi felt in that moment was a sick sort of relief, because it meant Takumi would get to survive the week. They grieved a bit, but had to carry on... until they got the news a bit later that Myra had been erased as well. Aya was granted reaperhood. They'd only lost two friends today. The gang attempted to help a girl with her problems through Reaper Creeper, which turned out to be unnecessary since she was a reaper and could see them. She revealed herself to be Airi Koizumi and told them all the story of how terrible Jess was and how her yandere nature led to Airi and a boy named Naoki's deaths. Kashi was texting Jess to see if there was some other explanation for all of this, but upon receiving no response, kind of broke. She fled the scene the moment she noticed the walls were down, curling up on her couch at Ochre and winding up clinging to Yasumu for a bit before remembering the promise of the night before and texting Takumi. She'd just gotten back to Takumi's side for a hug when Haruki grabbed all the players in the area and threw them into a bonus boss battle starring his own Noise form. She started the battle still crying, barely able to stand upright, not even wanting to be there. However, she was determined to live in order to get back to Takumi. She used her guitar for the first time to send blasts of fire in his direction, not having the energy for her normal magical girl shenanigans. The dynamic of the battle changed when Haruki growled something out about how he couldn't care and it clicked for her what he was doing here. She began trying to talk him out of that foolishness immediately, trying to help him through his problems despite the fact he was still trying to kill her. Most of the way through the battle, she realised there was a real chance he'd die here, and began begging him not to make her kill him. Ironically enough, when she ran up to hug him, she dealt the final blow as Demon's Hatred tapped into her latent feelings and struck for max damage. He simply detransformed instead of being erased, then pushed her off of him and got the hell outta Dodge. After that fight-- her spirits now remarkably lifted thanks to the power of friendship-- she cuddled up against Takumi and was taught how to play metal-genre music on her guitar. They had a talk about the fight which ended up with them just discussing Haruki in general. They encouraged her to help him change the same way she'd helped them, noting that she'd forgiven them for what they'd done to Sef, so could surely forgive Haruki as well. Forgiveness comes far too easily to this girl, so she agreed. Haruki phased in and floated over to them right on cue, as if he'd been summoned by their words. He asked to borrow Kashi, who happily agreed to go with him, then promptly kicked her into the Noise plane. Immediately thereafter he attacked her with his mic, not even bothering to go into Noise form but simply using his pins. He got her close to death and wrapped the cord of his mic around her neck, pulling her close to deal the finishing blow-- then finding himself unable to. She explained why caring wasn't a bad thing, then offered to be his friend. While he was initially incredulous at the notion, he agreed. The two of them phased out, collapsing near Takumi. Takumi understood what had happened and was proud. Usa, Juste, and Yasumu... not so much. She remained upbeat about it anyway, insisting that Ruki was her friend now and so everything was okay. It may have helped a little that he was genuinely apologising, at least before Takumi carted him off to their apartment. She talked to Usa about what their district was like as Yasumu and Juste bonded. Juste told Misae the story of the two wolves inside everyone, which... helped, somehow. She ended the day by following Yasumu home and explaining what had really happened with Haruki, plus why she forgave him. Day 6 Talking to Nagi about erasure led to Kei asking her why she was so blase about it. She was trying not to be afraid. It didn't work so well. It turned out Kei had been stabbed in the back by his best friend during a war, so the Reaper's Game was nowhere near as bad. After Nagito got thrown in a trash can, she tried to corner him and get him to open up about why he felt everyone was worthless. After snapping at her that if she wanted to make him happy, she should erase herself, he phased out. Oh well. She wandered over to hang out with Luna until God Channel started, talking to Faror briefly in order to promise her she'd stay in touch forever. Today's mission turned out to be the sort of thing that Kashi was made for. Four reapers had been brainwashed into fixating on nothing but their problems, and to clear the mission, all four had to be talked down, or some kind of emotional breakthrough achieved. If all was lost, the players could resort to violence. First up was Nagito-- who happened to be muttering about the same thing Kashi had tried to get him to open up about mere hours before. She stepped forward immediately to begin talking sense into him, pleased as punch that the GM's meddling actually gave her a chance to get answers for once. It turned out he had been responsible for the deaths of many players and was now refusing to admit they had worth for fear of what that would mean he had done. He fell asleep after the brainwashing wore off, so the group moved on. Next was Amaryllis, who Misae and Altair talked into trusting others and being less scared everyone she loved would hurt her. Kafu and Kashi teamed up to help Calanthe find a new direction in life-- something she could do so she didn't feel like she was putting the erased players' lives to waste. Then... Jean. None of the players at first had any idea who Jean was, let alone his problems. There was a lot of awkwardness, though he did open up, saying he felt too weak to protect those he cared about. A garbled phone call from Kaito didn't help matters. Juste finally tuned in to yell at him until he, too, made that emotional breakthrough. Jess showed up briefly, but refused to answer any questions before phasing out again. A feelings jam with her partner led to the declaration "The world has officially missed its chance to kill me." The two girls spent most of the post-mission downtime tangled up with each other, generally enjoying each other's company and being varying degrees of nervous about the day to come. A wild, semi-sentient fox Noise drew all of the twelve remaining players into battle. It took the forms (along with voices and powers) of their erased friends-- Rori, then Shion, then Sef-- and locked them in a long, gruelling battle during which Takashi/Takeshi and Sen/Tomohito were erased. Remembering Takumi's illusions against Sef gave her the strength to fight. She was terrified that it'd hit her or Luna as well, but the two of them managed to escape... after the fox decided it had had enough and bounced, leaving the eight remaining further traumatised. She ended the day at Ochre, though this time there were a lot of other people there with her. Jing dragged them back for dinner after the breakdown after the fight, saying she wasn't good with sad stuff. She fed them though, so hey. After dinner, she wound up talking to Howl (and occasionally Airi) about her worries about Day 7-- how she still loved Jess, and didn't think her pins would work on her. Mildly comforted, she spoke later to Usa about their Game, trying to keep her mind on happy thoughts before she curled up with Luna and fell asleep. Day 7 She started the day off only a few hours after she'd gone to sleep by moving her amps out into the middle of a street near Ochre and giving an impromptu metal concert. This turned into a marshmallow party with a variety of players and reapers talking and roasting marshmallows around a fire Faror had created. The atmosphere stayed generally cheerful and party-like until the mission mail was sent-- a map to where Jessamyn was waiting. Nervously, she grabbed onto Luna's hand and dragged her partner there with her. Her worries about being able to hit Jess with her pins turned out to be absolutely unfounded. For once she set up her amps during a fight, doing her best to drown out her own lingering attachment to the GM by deafening everyone with her guitar. This helped, allowing her to focus that attachment and the feel of heartbreak into pure anger and hatred. She hated Jess more than she ever had anyone and that became clear quickly, her pins reacting to her feelings and setting off giant explosions or storms. It seemed like the battle would go on like this forever, though Luna was talking to Jess and trying to get an explanation. Then Jess reacted to being called a coward... and friendship speech mode kicked in. She and Luna were talking to Jess with occasional assistance from other players (though Asahi especially was dead-set on just murdering the hell out of her), trying to convince her that no one needed to die today and she could fight back against the Game she hated. It came out that Jess' entry fee had been the sun, an explanation for the perpetual darkness. Throughout this fight, Kashi was texting Takumi, Faror, and Nagito, trying to keep her morale up enough to let her fight as that driving hatred was slowly being replaced with despair. She watched her partner's health slowly be whittled down and came to the sickening realisation that Luna didn't have a healing pin. Takumi remained serene throughout this all, talking to her about how they'd remember her and set up a memorial in her favourite venue, Yoyogi Park, reminding her to shine brightly and never lose hope. Faror was more desperate, but still reminding her not to give up, wishing there was something she herself could do to save the players. Nagito was angry more than everything, calling her a liar for thinking she'd break her promise to come back and hug him, insulting her, which Kashi took as a sign he cared. She was pretty much saying her goodbyes as Luna was poisoned and she realised she only had one turn left to live. Then some kind of twisted miracle happened-- not only Luna was erased at the end of Jess' turn, but Altair as well. Both Kashi and Asahi were left partnerless, with Usa screaming at them to repact. They did so at once. Though she'd never really talked to him, or learned anything more than his entry fee, she immediately cared about her new partner. They had to keep fighting. The situation only got worse when only a few turns later, Miyu and Misae were erased, though this allowed Juste to repact with a badly wounded Kafu. All four of them had now lost their partners and were brought together more than ever with that shared grief. As Faror tried to put it, all eight of them that had gone in there together had been partners. That... didn't help much. Either way, Kafu was on the verge of death, and none of them could take many more blows. The screaming of encouragement from all the reapers (and Jing and Yasumu) from outside wasn't enough to keep despair from setting in. They would all have died if Jess hadn't attacked herself next. That sight more than anything gave Kashi hope, letting her resume her pleading with her (former?) senpai despite the tears she'd vowed she would not let fall, begging Jess not to kill them all and to think about what she was doing, not to be an agent of this Game. Though Jess did strike out at Asahi and Juste a couple times, most of her blows were directed at herself from then on. In the end, it was Juste who dealt the finishing blow with a fully charged Wild Line he'd gotten from the friends no longer with him. She apologised... and was erased. The four players collapsed to the ground nearly in unison, emotionally and physically broken by this ordeal. One by one, they managed to phase out into the UG proper, where those who had been encouraging them rushed over. Kashi clung to Takumi after they picked her up, crying into their chest as now she had nothing to focus on to keep the loss of Luna out of her mind. After Kafu chose to come back to life, Kei called Kashi over, saying he'd wanted to save her until the end since she was a very special case, but with Asahi and Juste not doing so hot it was her turn. She was offered the standard three options (life, reaperhood, erasure) but a fourth as well-- Ascension, a mystery option Kei couldn't tell her the details of. Remembering Jess' similar offer, she was terrified, but after Kei assured her she could help many people (UG and RG alike) and definitely wouldn't have to kill Asahi, plus could talk to all her friends again eventually, she took it. After that, she went back to clinging to Takumi, watching Asahi become a Shinjuku reaper and Juste come back to life. The night became chaotic. She still got her last few things done-- hugging Faror and making sure she was okay, hugging Nagito at last, saying a temporary goodbye to Haruki, meeting Daichi-- before Takumi took her to Paindemic to talk to Blake about this whole Ascension thing. Post-Week Yeah, post-Week she was kind of an utter wreck. Being given immense power with no idea how to use it (Blake taught her the very basics; Takumi taught her a lot more), along with being suddenly homeless and without a legal identity, all while battling PTSD and survivor's guilt out the wazoo... Things caught on fire quite a lot around her especially because she kept having breakdowns at the slightest provocation. Takumi and Daichi's support helped stabilise her somewhat, at least. She managed to get a job at a music store where the boss cared more about her knowledge of music and ability to get along with the customers than she did about her lack of legal records or work history. Shortly after, she also managed to get a job at Kafu's cafe-- she'd applied just after the Week, but he'd lost her application, so she just showed up one day when he was swamped with customers and told him she worked there now. After managing to get legal documentation, she reinvented herself as Shiroizumi Sango, younger sister of the idol Takumi. She promptly overhauled her appearance to match. Relationships Luna (Luna-chan) Luna is her best friend and Week 12 partner. The two were the second pair to make their pact, calling it a 'magical girl transformation sequence' after noting Sef and Rori's lightshow. They feed off each other's manic energy to keep themselves going and battle together with incredibly ridiculous, flashy styles. Late Day One, Kashi learned that if she was erased, Luna would have only seven minutes to live (unless she could somehow find another unpacted partner). This has already become her main driving force, since she doesn't think she can win this game, and if she were on her own she'd have given up already and likely succumbed to fear. Jing (Ji-chan) Jing is the first shopkeeper she met and befriended, having stumbled into Ochre early in the morning of Day One. They immediately hit it off over a shared love for karaoke. Kashi gave her a small black eighth note charm. Thanks to this friendship, she's using Ochre as a home base of sorts, sleeping on a couch there whenever she does sleep. Yasumu (Iki-san) Jessamyn (Jess-senpai) Jess very quickly became Kashi's senpai. She spoke with her and Mai about reaperdom and the Game itself on the first day, and was constantly radiating happiness and good cheer. On the second day, she actively hugged Kashi and did her best to comfort her, making her feel like someone actually cared. She looks up to Jess quite a lot and wants to maintain that similar happy attitude despite all the things that could go wrong. As long as Jess remembers her, Kashi thinks everything will be fine. Over the course of the week, these feelings of admiration and love were smothered by pure hatred as she was devastated by the truth. Faror (Fire-chan) She gave Faror a rainbow charm. Rori (Ri-chan) She gave Rori a light brown kitty face charm. Nagito (Nagi-chan) Takumi (Iro-chan) Her first impression of Takumi was that they were cute. She idolised them once she recognised their music, then grew wary of them after they broke Seferino. At an impromptu concert the next night, though, the two spoke late into the night and bonded over a shared love of music. They let her borrow a guitar and promised to introduce her to the agency they work with at the end of the week. She gave Takumi an unpainted but incredibly shiny silver star charm in return. They call her Sango, the colour of coral, and she's told them they can talk to her whenever they need to. You must not lose hope is the most important thing. They've become the reaper she's most attached to, winding up constantly texting them and clinging to them for most of Day 7. Usa (Usa-san) She gave her a small pink bunny charm. Haruki (Ruki-chan) After watching him torment Rori, she hated him, the first time she'd ever really hated anyone here. Then she gave him the news of Sef/Rori's erasures and watched his expressions, thinking then that he did care and being unable to hate him so much. Day 5, he dragged a group of players in to fight his Noise form, having an obvious breakdown (over thinking that caring made him weak) that Kashi began yelling friendship speeches and forgiveness to help with. She was devastated by dealing what she thought was the killing blow. A few hours later, he tried to kill her, but was unable to do so, and became her friend instead. She's very attached to him and cares deeply about his welfare and continued ability to change and find hope (and learn to care) thanks to all the work she put in getting to him. She gave him a small silver-black mic charm. Blake (Blake-san) A fellow pyromaniac whom she bonded with over a love of fire and explosions. Thinks he's really cool... and has surprising capacity for words of wisdom. Memory of Paindemic and its music spurred her on in the GM fight. That he's the one she's got to talk to about Ascension helped to reassure her about the concept in general. Kafu (Kafu-san) Works at his cafe now because he's an overworked dumbass. Juste (Rockstar-san) Asahi (Asahi-san) She never really talked to him much or got to know much about him other than that he was rather gruff and had lost all musical ability (even ability to hear it!) as his entry fee, which made her think her own wasn't so bad in comparison. During the GM battle, their partners were erased on the same turn, so they repacted. She is very inclined to want to protect him thanks to this brief partnership. Trivia *She obsessively keeps up with new artists and songs... though her terrible memory and facial recognition skills leave her notoriously poor at being able to identify which artist goes with which song. Given the first few bars of any song she's heard, though, she can identify it and sing the rest. *Speaks Japanese, English, and Japanese Sign Language fluently. Picked up the last one from a mute friend she had in middle school, a girl named Taeko. *She collects small charms of the sort that would go on a charm bracelet and keeps a double handful in her pocket at all times. So far she's given Jing a black eighth note, Jess a yellow/black smiley face, and Mai a spring green peace sign. Gallery Portrait placeholder.png|OH WOW HERE IS AN IMAGE DESCRIPTION. Portrait placeholder.png|OH WOW HERE IS AN IMAGE DESCRIPTION. Category:Players Category:Week 12 Category:Angels